i know what u mean
and i cant wait for camp bc we are so different from other ramahs
and we even have every shabbos afternoon what is affectionatly known as
FAR WEST SHABBOS MINCHA!!!!
and now for some things that are written about ramah cali
some i wrote, some others wrote
they are on bangitout.com, and they also have ramah palmer there
and i cant wait for camp bc we are so different from other ramahs
and we even have every shabbos afternoon what is affectionatly known as
FAR WEST SHABBOS MINCHA!!!!
and now for some things that are written about ramah cali
some i wrote, some others wrote
they are on bangitout.com, and they also have ramah palmer there
Top 50 Signs you went to Camp Ramah in California
by Matt Rutta
1. You waited for the Director to put his hashgacha on Stir Crazy and Ojai Ice Cream just so you could go to them during your off time
2. It is the only camp without a lake, but you didn’t care
3. You are jealous of the campers and counselors in the brand new Gesher bunks
4. If you are from somewhere outside of Los Angeles, you get made fun of. Out-of-state or out-of-country, you are made fun of for 4 straight weeks.
5. You decided to leave camp after Shacharit and go 100 miles each way to Los Angeles just to pick up Pico Kosher Deli for lunch.
6. Tuesday means felgercarb for breakfast and lunch, but barbeque for dinner, Wednesday means cardboard pizza, Thursday means chocolate croissants, Shabbos means chocolate muffins, deviledeggs, taco salad, and deadly vegetarian chulent
7. You put the yellow salad dressing on absolutely everything, regardless of how disgusting the final product might be
8. You wake up early daven on your own because of the damn liberal “west coast conservative” people.
9. There is always an epidemic of something
10. Ditching kitot is the law of the land
11. If you are in Abirim, you feel inferior to Nitzanim because you are NOT A REAL EDAH!
12. Maccabiah is always the hottest and nastiest-weathered day of the session and Visitor’s Day is a close second
13. Where else could you have Winter Camp?
14. You aren’t scared of the guy who owns a shotgun to shoot bears and a hoe to kill snakes but you are scared of the guy with the blue SUV (please don’t kill me…)
15. You get so much exercise climbing up and down The Hill dozens of times each day.
16. The Nutritionist is actually an evil person who came up with less nutritious and more “yummy” (read: fatty and carb-filled) foods.
17. You can’t tell the Hispanic Catholics from the Israelis in the kitchen, as neither wear kippot.
18. Four words: Far West Shabbos Mincha
19. The last Friday afternoon of each session you fear for your lives as Machon comes back from Tza’adah and gives out Mud-
Hugs.
20. Everyone puts peanut butter in their ice cream at Shalosh Seudos.
21. “No smoking, absolutely no smoking, positively no smoking,shavuah tov!”
22. The only people in the entire camp with Ruach are in Machon. No one else cares!
23. Actively protesting the camp bureaucracy is the only way to get things done
24. Being a member of the Break-Fast Club is a thing to be proud of
25. People recognize Mador as being not a paying job, but as slave labor
26. “What are those things? Fleas?”
27. You will kill anyone for starting “We’ve got Ruach, Yes we do!” but “Yibaneh HaMikdash”, “There once was a wizard” and “Hipza Zooza” are perfectly acceptable
28. You have participated in a doubles tennis tournament to win the Kiddish Cup, which if you win, you get a green luggage tagthat wins you a soda from Coach
29. Where the winning team on Maccabiah is not Kachol, Lavan, Adom, or Yarok; it’s Team Day Off!
30. You don’t trust that eruv. OR: Wait, we can’t hike any further this way or we will have left the eruv. Why are we hiking
on Shabbos, anyway?
31. The hand movements for birkat hamazon.
32. Getting in trouble for sneezing “zechut!” during Birkat Hamazon
33. “Zeh Lo Mekubal! Ain “Whoop-dee-doo” b’birkat hamazon!”
34. Former Gesher counselors with their weak attempts to include Gesher in Rad Hayom (Taps will never be the same…)
35. Getting caught in the middle of the night in one of the Amphitheatre changing rooms
36. “The man in the moon is my friend. The man in the moon is my friend. I don’t know why! I don’t know why” and the rest gets
garbled. My favorite is “He must go to Camp Ramah in Ojai”
37. Even though we go there all the time, the location is as mysterious as Area 51.
38. Guessing the theme of the Az Ich Vil Zingen at Shabbos Dinner or the Yismechu at Shabbos lunch
39. All of our Edah songs have dirty hand movements and sound effects, particularly the “Unh!” of Abirim, Giborei Yisrael,
40. No matter how many years ago it was, if you were in Nitzanim, David Ross told you the Sharman story and you had
nightmares that night.
41. Bunk bonding activity: urinating on the burned-out car near on the lonely bench hike above the Gesher bunks
42. Everyone wished they were on Zach Israel’s Yarok team for Maccabiah because he is the coolest person EVER!
43. “We love Shmaltz points!” as the number one song at camp, according to Coach
44. Smashing a hard-boiled egg over someone’s face or putting numerous packets of salt into one’s food when they weren’t looking
led to swift and painful retaliation
45. The two easiest places to fall asleep are on the staff lounge couches or during Rabbi Dan’s Friday night Tish (it’s not
that they were boring, it’s just that we’re tired on Friday nights from not being off all day Friday)
46. handshakes, high fives, and even hugs are ALWAYS followed up by the Soul Punch (for the uninitiated, when two people’s clenched right fists come into contact with each other)
47. Without anyone even asking, you know what meals to get 30 slices of bread and peanut butter and jelly (hint, hint, potato and
cheese quiche)
48. The older the edah you work with, the closer you get to real t’filot, but you are never yotzei anything.
49. If you have a staff brat in your bunk or tent, you can bet they will go to their parent’s room any damn time they please, most
likely during times when you are counting them.
50. Camp Ramah in California: the JAPiest Place on Earth
Readers Comments:
From Matt Rutta
EVEN MORE (Many more!) signs you went to Camp Ramah in California
1. First of all, Matan is much more muscular than I am
2. You got all of your left shoes stolen on the penultimate day of camp and placed in the middle of the hill by other staff members.
3. Ojai is such a small town that it doesn’t even have a CitiBank, yet it is large enough to have two Day Spas that are
frequented by many staff members on their days off, except for Madors as their salaries would barely pay for a back rub.
4. Some Madors give back their measly paycheck so the summer will count as their required 30 hours of community service at
Milken. One person worked out 30 hours at about 37 cents, but in order for it to qualify they have to give back all of the money.
5. We work at camp even though all of our friends who are working at Blockbuster and as bagboys are making ten times what we
make, we still come back (and aren’t kids more important than groceries or un-rewound tapes? Shouldn’t that be reflected in paychecks?)
6. It is my opinion that the lack of a lake increases the sexual drive of everyone at camp. Don’t ask me why!
7. It’s funny to note that so many of the ancient Ramah families from our parents’ generation were formed as a result of CCRs.
8. As of September, everyone’s AOL/AIM Profiles and Away Messages express how much they miss Camp Ramah.
9. Your director won the Gold Medal for swimming in the Maccabi Games in Israel and almost went to the Summer Olympics on
the Israel Team
10. You have seen that ugly Paul Frank monkey in all sorts of situations (braces, eating an orange, et al.)
11. It may be all the way out in Ojai, California, but most of your Rashei Edah live in New York City.
12. Only in our Chadar Ochel would you have Mar Milon and an epic battle between Captain Hook and Peter Pan during the same meal
13. An actual Yom Meuchad (Special Tuesday) last summer: Yom Neshama Carlebach
14. Café Ezra on Thursday Nights
15. The resource room out of resources, the staff computer room with no working computers, the staff lounge with the VCR/DVD Player taken… grr…
16. Watching the death of a rattlesnake is an exciting event meant for bonding with your bunk.
17. From the Summer of 2002: Salmon Staff Shabbos (“it’s not pink; it’s salmon”)
18. No matter the age of your kids, on Shabbos you let them do whatever while you shluf under the willow trees on The Hill
19. The most hellish bunk in camp (Bunk 7, 1st session, you know who you are!) ends up being perfect little angels as it raises
a baby sparrow for the last few days of camp.
20. The person with the dirtiest mouth in the entire camp is not a camper; it’s the Assistant Director
21. People who never went to staff class just needed to make up two at the end of the session. However, I ended up going to at least 10.
22. What was with that yellow watermelon during Banquet of first session
23. When Cardboard Pizza became Silver Platter Pizza, the entire world was changed
24. “5…4…3…2…1…Bombardment!”
25. Set, Shesh-Besh, and Family Business are the best games to play under the staff trees on Shabbos afternoon.
26. Sometimes you think that the Machonis are more mature than some of the Madorniks
27. Poor clueless Gesher campers, not knowing that their lives are in danger when Machon comes back from Tzaadah
28. What ever happened to wearing garbage bags on the day that Machon returns from Tzaadah
29. Playing shower trivia with impossibly difficult Talmud Trivia… with 9-year olds
30. Getting told off because you start a chant in the chadar “that is so last year”
31. There are maximum of three computers for the 250 staff members.
32. Since when was Banquet supposed to be like Purim without the Megillah Reading?
33. You heard about the Plague that spread around camp a few years ago and you are chillingly reminded of it as you eat your
chulent
34. The assistant director forbids Peulot Erev that involve talent shows because “kids have no talent!”
35. There is a tally kept in the Marp for people who drop a bench on their foot while wearing open-toed shoes. Suprisingly, there are many tick-marks on this list
36. Ivrit, Ivrit, Ivrit Daber Ivrit Hey La La La La La La, La La La La La La, La La La La La La, La La La La La, Ivrit, Ivrit,
Ivrit Daber Ivrit Hey!
37. Torah Bibly!
38. For attempting to do a portion of Far West Mincha outside of the Far West Region, you get blacklisted for leading services for an entire month.
39. The campers thought camp was too religious for them and there were too many services (oooh, a twenty minute shacharit once
a day…) when they have no idea how comparatively scary the real world is outside of Camp and Southern California.
40. You are well versed in the rules of Freeze, including such variations that include Remote Control Freeze (Stop, Pause, Rewind,
Fast Forward, Slow Motion, Mute, Volume Up/Down, Power On/Off), and Malleable Freeze (when you put the kids and whatever they happen to be holding in interesting positions, ie: pitchers about to spill, their finger in PB&J, or weird sword poses)
41. When it comes to warming up the Chadar, there’s nothing like a cheer by DB and Josh Cohen
42. Why do people always think they can successfully raid the canteen? It’s impossible; some random person is always standing guard there at night for some reason.
43. Nobody really knows when he or she is supposed to be “on” so everyone assumes they are always “off” (give the kids a schedule and let them survive a day).
44. The place where fifty Sollelim campers could sneak past 100 staff members at the staff Oneg on Friday night and remain undetected until midnight in the lighted areas of The Hill as we are dog-piling on top of each other in the GaGa Court
45. Where GaGa is considered to be a sport.
46. Mi Sheberach for the Cholim is not just for ill friends and family. Sports players on the DL (ie: Fred McGriff), with legal trouble (ie: Kobe Bryant, Chris Webber), and for some strange reason other people’s deceased childhood pets are also mentioned.
47. A Courtesy Flush is considered a Mitzvah G’dolah
48. Certain campers wear the same clothes for an entire week and assume that nobody else notices. This is true of some campers from the youngest to oldest edot.
49. Some people bring their own shower heads from home because they can’t stand the water pressure.
50. Some people claim to be Orthodox, just so they don’t have to wear a tallis (They don’t even wear a Tallit Kattan)
51. Every time you see a pitcher of water at a restaurant you begin to reminisce about how you used to get yelled at by Miriam
and Shai for putting silverware in the plastic pitchers during clean-up.
52. As you have dinner with a fellow former staff member at Dougie’s (as you talk about camp), you consider raising your empty pitcher to have it refilled before realizing that doing so is incredibly rude in the real world
53. Three words which change everyone’s life: Stack And Pass (or for breakfast Pass And Toss)
54. You find out at the end of the session that there was an 8 year old girl in your edah that had a cell phone hidden at the bottom of her luggage and that she was secretly calling her mom every single night; and she was told to lie about her birthday.
55. Only in your bunk/tent are all of the ADD/ADHD kids on “Medication Vacations”
56. Some of your staff activities included: Frat Party (with Root Beer Pong), Sushi Making, Moon bounce, Cotton Candy, Snow Cones, Sumo Wrestling, Pool Tournaments, Family Guy marathon, Sex in the City premiere/Dedication of the Staff Lounge, Talent Show, Coffee Bean/Tea Leaf Rental Truck, Square Dancing, Dance party with a blow-up doll in the house in the Orange Grove.
57. “No Smoking” is not really that much of a big deal because you lambaste and make fun of your kids all the time, except this time it is in front of the rest of the Edah.
58. You just know that those cute kids in the Gan will end up being annoying staff brats soon.
59. There is an underground smuggling ring of In-n-Out Burger (20 miles away in Ventura) into the camp.
60. People go thrifting for clothing for banquet at such politically incorrect places such as “The Retarded Children’s Thrift Shop” and “The Battered Women’s Thrift Shop”
61. You or someone you know bought a whole living room set at a thrift shop for about $5 just to keep on their porch for the summer. How many La-Z-Boys get given away to thrift shops, anyway, because Tzevet Machane Ramah sure buys a whole lot?
62. One thing you find out is that little kids listen to practically everything you say.
63. Anything you have to yell at your kids about is always blamed on the Rosh Edah (ie: I want you to run around barefoot, but the Rosh said that you had to wear shoes on hikes…)
64. Machon’s pranks are sometimes so ingenious, I think they could use some of them to take over a small country.
65. As the only Ramah not under the direct auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary, we have a certain disregard for the whole “Jewish thing”.
66. When we are away from camp during an off season, staff members stick together to avoid having to come into too much contact with the outside world.
67. You create a support group to wean yourself off of camp with other camp members, knowing full well that seeing them makes the task even more difficult.
68. Some people love and miss camp so much, that they compile a list of humorous identifying traits of people who worked there.
69. You find out afterwards, that random campers and staff members check out Bangitout.com
70. What can I say? Ein Od Makom BaOlam K’Machane Ramah!
From Ramahfia:
You know you're at Camp Ramah in CA when...
You beat the snot out of Rutta on the first shabbos of staff week, even though he is twice your weight
no one ever goes to the organized saturday night activity, and go to club fingerhut instead.
when a kid offers to sell a body part for extra canteen
when someone is stupid enough to lend his car out to Israelis without insurance or a license.
when Linder backs into a wall on the first day
when a tzophimer takes his day off to participate in Maccabiah and still gets last place
when every year at least one camper breaks his arm grass-boarding because his counselor is too lazy to come outside and do his job of watching the kids
when cool = goofy
or cool = usy
or carrows = nightly
and everything is "amazing" or "awesome" or grrrrreat
when basketball is your life and the life of the director
when the RBA starts out with fifty participants, but disintegrates down to a three on three game by second session
When counselors can’t drive into camp because of safety issues, but on board day you have ferraris screaming around turns at eighty mph
When every counselor’s dream is to one day be sgan rosh and go to a hanhallah meeting
When every year without fail, at least 2000 dollars worth of stuff is stolen from tzophim and machon during their overnight
when half the staff won’t do their job or show up to things cause they are reading the new harry potter book
And last but not least…
Despite all of these terrible things, you come back every year without fail.
you pretend to be sick to sleep in the air conditioned marp and watch a movie
you yell at someone every morning to put up the flaps
you prefer the broken shower heads in the boys shetach because they have better water pressure
you pretend to be vegiterian on the days with bad meat meals (can you say uncooked hot dogs)
you know every hiking path around camp and know which one will take you out of camp with nobody seeing you
you have attempted some sort of lame prank involving benches
malchutcha malchutcha olamim...
you dread macabiah because of coach (coach: "im not biased" ten minutes later , a counciler says "im from phoenix too" alright ten points to team cachool for being from phoenix)
you call camp during maccabiah the suck up capitol of the world
you think the jewish population in ojai rises during the summer at least 500 times
you have been woken up at least once by a rooster
you choose volleyball as a sport because you can just sit on the sideline
you spend your free time after lunch launching waterballoons and other unusual objects
you play asswhole on a regular basis
you have a bench with your name on it
you have seen every rendtion of "eggs"
you have seen "three treatourous buzzards" more than once
you have a tent in your eidah known as the loser tent or have geographical areas in a tent (like the berkely corner full of kids from berkely in that tent corner)
you actually know every eidah song, possibly with the wrong words
you know where the best areas and what the best boxes for grassboarding are
you have played shower hockey or shower trivia
you have at least one childish counciler
you have had to go the the bunk shetach to shower when machon comes back from tza'adah
you know all the best hiding places for food
you have played either capture the flag or ultimate frizzbee on a large scale
-you know what CHEZ means
-you remember when the creek actually had water and animal life
-you know where ramah has stashes that are accessible of wine and sodas
-you know how to control the sprinklers on the volleyball court
-you know the difference between mirpeset gadol and mirpeset katan and the chadar and the chadar kattan
-you always fear the swings on wizin field falling
-you have no idea why there is a big rock with the plaque on it in the middle of a sports field (on wizin field) you just know its a pain in the ass
-you dont know why we have a sports rock when it has no connection to sports
-you know how to climb the most popular trees without getting hurt
-you have pissed on first base
-your name is somewhere in a tent and the year/eidah when you were in that bed
-your bed is mysteriously yellow
-you cannot stand the double basketball rims and how each hoop is different heights
-you know what "na leharim hasafsalim al hashulchanot. tzohorim tovim means"
-you know what shmirah is and how to get around them
-you know all the food pranks (such as salting or the open parmesan cheese)
-you know the 'official' recipe for deviled eggs
-you know at least two of the names of the kitchen staff
-you have made out in the tunnel on wizin field
-you have attempted to get on top of a cabin
-you know which are the best bunks to have in every bunk
-you consistently every year have either a top bunk or a bottom bunk
-you know which are the good canteen things to get that rarely run out
-can anybody say: "sisco boxes"?
-you hide frosted flakes under the table for sunday breakfeast
-you have played in tzofim machon bball games or tent v tent bbal games or counciler came bball games (both baseball and basketball)
-you have a collapsable chair
-you know cheesy songs like baby shark
-you prepare for machons return from tza'adah and then when they come you dont care if you get muddy
-you know how to find a shaddy location on visitors day
-you can find your parents out of a crowd of over 1000 on visitors day
-while walking around camp your parents have to stop and say hi to all of their camp friends
-your grandparents have friends that are the grandparents to people in your eidah
-you have had at least one bench or table collapse on you
-you know what the shabbos bathroom club is
-you know how to get out of kikar tzion on those long shabbos services
-you would rather sit on the floor during eicha then on the benches
-you have attempted to hijack a golfcart
-you cant stand those "big sticks" that are flavorless yet eat them anyway
-you would rather eat the prickley pear than some of ramah's cookies
-you can "earn" coke tickets with absolutly no effort
-you dont know why but you cant stand the smell of the old library
-you know which are the cleanest bathrooms at camp
-you realize that the libraries are oxymorons, since neither contain many books
-your parents or your parents friends or somebody that you know is in a picture in the old or new library
-you no longer wonder what all those black paint spots in the tents and bunks are
-you dont remember why or when but all you know is that most of the doors that connect bunks in the bathrooms are sealed shut
-you remeber when they changed the name of hashgeva
-you have at least one amitzimer who knows you or your counciler and is always in your tent
-you have always wanted to go inside the kitchen, the one place that people have rarely been in
-you wonder what the cardboard pizza tastes like before the heat lamps
-you peel the cheese layer off the pizza and eat the bread part that tastes like foccacia
-you have created or set off several ketsup bombs
-you have proved murphys law time and time again
-you know what type of car that is up on the hill behind the tents (ford farelane)
-you do whatever you can to get out of rekkudiah
-shabbos means machon tzofim sport games
-mini mandel
-you know the chefs name
-You pray that you do not have hillary gardenshwartz as your rosh
-you want evan bronner, matt low, adam shwartz, josh sultan, mark metzen, sasha israel, zach israel, or one of the other popular councilers as your counciler
-you have somebody watching your stuff during the overnight
-you have found tarantulas, scorpions, hornets or other unusual animals near you at camp
-you have won maccabiah because of nepotism (my nitzanim year on team cachol, 1998, coachs daughter was on the team)
-you know somebody who has been kicked out for one reason or another
-you have heard one of the many stories about charmins cave
-you have heard one of many stories of zach israel being kicked out and are postive your story is right
-you have a stamp that was custom made to label your clothing
-you bring your own laundry detergent
-you know somebody who has had a serious injury at camp
-you know of somebody involving drugs and camp
-you can name the themes/tshirts of the past several years of ramah and mador (carls jr, mador dream house, eat more chicken, ramahpoly, ramable,ramahland, ramah baseball shirts, ramah blue and white, ramah xxl, etc)
-your parents or family have shirts and photos from when they were at camp in the 70's
-your parents have been to the old camp
-you know of the old camp as the beehive
-you know the real story of the ojai boys (not the common misconception)
-you know several instinces involving ramah and fire
-you have spent years thinking of your machon prank
-you know every maccabiah event and chear by heart
-you have painted your whole body before during maccabiah
